Integrating real-time payments with CashPro® API in a single weekend

6 minute read

Love’s Financial is the financial services arm of Love’s Travel Stops, which operates more than 660 travel centers across the U.S. Love’s Financial provides a range of services, including customizable freight factoring solutions, which help owner-operators of large fleets manage cash flow by purchasing their outstanding invoices.

API-driven payments became a priority for Love’s in 2024 when it acquired a company that had been funding its customers on a daily basis using a real-time payment (RTP) API. Love’s knew that a disruption to this process would hurt the success of its new acquisition because these customers were used to receiving funds instantly, so the executive treasury team needed to make a seamless transition.

The challenge for Love’s was to roll out a quick integration to minimize disruption, and the outcome was impressive: “We closed Friday night and essentially reopened on Monday morning with our new system. We didn’t have the luxury of a transition period of a few months,” says John Akers, Senior Group Manager of Operations for Love’s Financial. That speed is testament to the power of APIs, coupled with a streamlined implementation process — both are crucial in today’s very fast-moving world.

The Love’s IT team took the lead on the integration, making the necessary changes to internal systems. Given the compressed timeline, Bank of America’s sandbox, a robust testing environment, proved instrumental in significantly accelerating the process. The Love’s team was able to ensure that the connections were strong and that information was flowing as expected. Akers says, “We utilized that sandbox process for a week to 10 days before we went live, which really helped us in our confidence on our Friday night purchase that we were going to be able to operate on Monday.”

Using CashPro® API to initiate payments has improved day-to-day treasury operations and created efficiencies. Akers says, “Anytime you have a manual data entry, you’re opening that process up to errors. There’s no manual entry of any information anymore. The records flow seamlessly through the system.”

It’s also added flexibility. With payment deadlines occurring throughout the day, “APIs are critical to getting our payments out the door in a timely, accurate manner,” says Akers. “Servicing our new portfolio has become faster than if we had to use a wire or ACH file. It eliminates the paperwork, so there’s no batch processing.”

Making the change didn’t require a major investment in staff training, and Love’s found that the only speed bump was predicting funding levels early in the day to cover payments. However, a process to monitor the account was quickly put in place.

Akers says, “We want to meet our customers on their terms and gain flexibility in running our business, and APIs give us a competitive advantage.” First and foremost, they remove dependence on the traditional day, which is especially relevant for the freight business where deliveries and pickups continue 24/7. Akers says, “We’re open on a lot of holidays when banks may be closed, and we’re still able to operate as normal for those customers.”

Meeting customers where they are is a great example of the flexibility that APIs deliver, helping to drive a steady increase in API usage and adoption. Payment is immediate because there’s no waiting for an ACH payment to clear, and that’s essential for a lot of businesses, from the auto industry to healthcare providers. It’s also a good deal for the receiver because there’s no associated cost, like an incoming wire fee.

API-driven payments give Love’s more resiliency by allowing the company to meet customer needs without compromising its risk procedures. “If there’s a weather event or a system disruption that puts us behind doing our daily work, we’re not faced with a 4:00, 4:45, 5:00 wire cutoff time that would either make us forego our risk procedures or not fund a customer. Additionally, fraud is the number one concern for our business, so managing that risk is key,” says Akers. The company is also looking at using APIs in other areas of the business, including gathering information on freight brokers to help create efficiencies.

Love’s was able to successfully integrate with CashPro API to initiate payments in record time, helping grow its business. It’s also positioned Love’s to scale up in the future with further acquisitions. A recent change means even more businesses can reap the rewards of real-time execution: The same-day limit for U.S. RTPs increased in March 2025 from $1 million to $10 million, expanding the benefits for businesses of all sizes.